Category: ETL

With the advent of The Interconnected Aviation Ecosystem, …[our airline]…has deemed that the best way for a return on our investment in our ongoing acquisition of big data sources (airplanes, ops system, maintenance control, ground handling scheduling, etc) is to hire a dedicated leader for our transformation into solely digital operations. The prospective candidate must have:

A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and a Master of Business Administration (or equivalent business degree and sufficient information technology academic background).

Step 1: Equip a multitude of disconnected, offline items with digital signal recording and transmission capability, aka create an Internet Of Things: people with fitness bands, aircraft engines with sensor feeds, ground vehicles with a mobile phone and apps, and so on.

Step 2: Connect all these and harness the power of optimal resource scheduling and real-time knowledge in real time, aka eEnablement.

Except it’s far from straightforward. With any number of these resources, you obviously need large-scale scheduling, tracking and optimisation software for largely automated yet still human-assisted control (please insert any serious suggestions here!). Departments need to collaborate on getting the most out of these processes, too. So, lots and lots of money with a 5+ years return on investment horizon.

As an illustration, take the simple case of Electronic Aircraft Tech Logs, aka replacing a paper process with a tablet, except it isn’t: how do you ensure content control, electronic signature international law compliance, digital technical record standardization in accordance with the aircraft owner? Would a lessor accept to discontinue physical technical records? Here, “paper” equals “straightforward“.

I have yet to see a cost-benefit analysis that shows a positive ROI with eTL (I’ve been looking for one for two years). There are tools to start the dialogue on potential cost reduction and I do preemptively agree that it may be possible if the stars of operational detail align (right fleet size, lack of maintenance reliability reviews, departments in silos, and expensive paper production and storage). Still, I have found the benefits of increased communication speed difficult to transform with solid proof from Excel estimations to saved cash.

Except when the airline has a policy of “Conversion to All Things Digital” in operations where it refuses to deal with paper and absorbs the resulting risk and complications (as well as the long-term benefits). I refer to an overarching vision to have every operational element (human, vehicle, airplane) as a digital data source in a giant, perpetually-moving Gantt chart. Then, eTL shows a first step in the long conversion process.

And a Chief eEnablement Officer (or Chief AI Officer, or Chief Digital Future Officer, you name your flavour) becomes the indispensable leader of this policy’s implementation.